January 14th, 2020: Astros, Arbitration Signings, Judge, Voit, Tarpley, Escotto, Sabathia, Tanaka

Four weeks and one day until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training. I'm in full countdown mode, if you can't tell. I'm ready for the offseason to be over and baseball to return. Here are today's thoughts.

1. Astros punished. MLB and commissioner Rob Manfred announced their punishment for the Astros stemming from the sign-stealing scandal yesterday. Manfred released a nine-page report detailing the investigation, which I appreciated. Transparency is always good. The report states the Astros used multiple sign-stealing systems throughout the 2017 postseason, so yes, the Yankees were fighting an unfair fight in the ALCS, and we're allowed to be mad about it. I suggest enjoying the schadenfreude but not dwelling on the situation. Nothing we can do to change things now. Here is a recap of the punishment:

• $5M fine (max allowed under MLB rules)
• GM Jeff Luhnow suspended one year*. He was then fired.
• Manager A.J. Hinch suspended one year. He was fired too.
• Previously fired assistant GM Brandon Taubman suspended one year.
• Astros lose their first and second round picks in the next two drafts.

The punishment feels harsh and not harsh enough at the same time. MLB was never going to take away the 2017 World Series title and that would have been toothless anyway. Take away a championship a team already won? Who cares. Astros owner Jim Crane announced he fired Hinch and Luhnow at a press conference yesterday afternoon and it felt extremely orchestrated. Almost like MLB gave him the opportunity to do so to distance himself from the scandal, and make sure everyone knows where the blame lies. Hinch is very well respected within baseball and he'll be back in the game soon enough. I'm not sure he can return to the dugout after this, but maybe he'll be back in a front office role (he has front office experience). Luhnow? Not so sure about him. He's not well liked and I could see the other 29 teams blacklisting him after this, and saying the game is better without him. I guess we'll find out. No players were disciplined -- Carlos Beltran is the only 2017 Astros player mentioned by name in Manfred's report -- because a) it would be almost impossible to assign the proper amount of blame to each player, and b) Manfred explicitly said the manager and general manager would be held responsible for any sign-stealing shenanigans in his statement following the Red Sox Apple Watch scandal, so there you go. This part of the report made me laugh:

Many of the players who were interviewed admitted that they knew the scheme was wrong because it crossed the line from what the player believed was fair competition and/or violated MLB rules. Players stated that if Manager A.J. Hinch told them to stop engaging in the conduct, they would have immediately stopped.

Y'all are grown ass men. You don't need another more grown ass man to tell you to stop when you know what you're doing is wrong. I get the players were trying to save face, but come on. You play a kid's game for a living but you aren't kids. No one should have to slap your hand away from the cookie jar. Anyway, the lost draft picks hurt, but man, it could've been so much worse, and they didn't lose any international bonus money either. My proposed punishment would've tanked their amateur talent acquisition the next two years. Losing four high draft picks is bad but not as bad as it could have been, especially because Houston's 2020 first and second round picks were at the end of the round. It's not like MLB is taking away a top 10 pick. The $5M fine is laughable. It's the maximum allowed under MLB's rules, I know, but it's nothing compared to the World Series windfall the Astros enjoyed after winning the World Series. (Based on the players' pool that postseason, the team banked over $30M in gate receipts alone. Then there's all the merchandise, ad sales, future ticket sales, etc.) It is dangerously close to an acceptable risk. Hell, you don't even have to win the World Series to make tens of millions of dollars. Go lose in the LCS, pay your $5M max fine, and you'll still come out far ahead. Yeah, the team's reputation is shot, but who cares? Nothing a little winning won't cure. Don't believe me? Wait until all the redemption stories come out when the Astros win the AL West again. To spark meaningful change, the owner has to really feel it, and that $5M fine is a drop in the bucket. That's not enough for the other 29 owners to take notice and tell their baseball folks to stop cheating. I know the max fine is in the rules, but it's dumb. Raise that ceiling substantially. Of course, it will never happen because the guys writing the rules are the ones who will have to pay the fine, but, if they really care about cheating, show good faith and give the commissioner the power to really hold you accountable with a huge fine. I'm not holding my breath. As for Alex Cora, he's capital-S Screwed. Manfred's report implicates him in the sign-stealing scheme -- the report mentions Cora by name 11 times and says he was instrumental in devising and carrying out the plan, and he was the only non-player assigned blame -- and it feels like his best case scenario is getting a one-year suspension and fired like Hinch. That would be a good outcome for him. I bet Cora will get hit much harder, perhaps even with a lifetime ban. He was bench coach for the 2017 Astros, who have been punished for sign-stealing, and manager for the 2018 Red Sox, who are being investigated for sign-stealing. He's a repeat offender who did it with two teams. Two World Series champions. I mean, let's take a step back to look at the big picture. Two of the last three World Series champs either have been or will be punished for high-tech sign-stealing, and one man was in a position of power with both teams. Seems bad for Cora. Chances are we were never going to be satisfied with the discipline. I've said all along I wanted MLB to overpunish and set a harsh precedent now rather than appear lenient, and I guess they accomplished that, but eh. Could've come down harder. The integrity of the sport was compromised -- think of all the opposing players whose livelihoods (stats weren't as good going into free agency or arbitration, etc.) that were impacted by this -- and we don't know whether we can trust the results on the field. That's real bad. The punishment is harsh but the damage has already been done.

* Former Braves assistant GM John Coppolella was banned for life as part of the club's international signing scandal and, from what I understand, he was completely uncooperative during the investigation. Luhnow cooperated, hence a lighter suspension.

2. Arbitration signings. Friday's arbitration filing deadline came and went with no drama for the Yankees. They announced agreements with all nine arbitration-eligible players on one-year contracts for 2020. The Yankees have not gone to an arbitration hearing since beating Dellin Betances in 2017, and before that since beating Chien-Ming Wang in 2008. They did come close to a hearing last year -- Luis Severino agreed to his four-year, $40M extension literally outside the room, minutes before his scheduled hearing last February -- but there will be no close calls this winter. Here are the salaries via Ron Blum:

Most within the MLBTR model's margin of error. Montgomery took the biggest discount relative to his projection -- Paxton's discount is more total dollars but it's a much smaller percentage of his salary -- and he just missed close to two full seasons with Tommy John surgery, so I get it. Good for Urshela turning his breakout year into a larger than projected salary. He was a small bonus international signing back in the day ($300,000) and, after shuttling up and down the last few seasons, locking in that first seven-figure payday has to feel good. Sanchez's salary is the second largest ever for a first-time arbitration-eligible catcher behind Buster Posey, who went into arbitration with a Rookie of the Year and an MVP award, and received $8M as a first-timer in 2013. The story this year is Judge, clearly. He obliterated his MLBTR projection and, as best I can tell, he received the seventh largest first-time arbitration salary in history:

1. Cody Bellinger: $11.5M (Rookie of the Year and MVP)
2. Kris Bryant: $10.85M (Rookie of the Year and MVP)
3. Francisco Lindor: $10.55M (Rookie of the Year runner-up)
4. Mookie Betts: $10.5M (MVP runner-up)
5. Ryan Howard: $10M (Rookie of the Year and MVP)
6. Alfonso Soriano: $10M
7. Aaron Judge: $8.5M

The injuries cost Judge an eight-figure salary in 2020 plus more in future years because arbitration raises are based on the previous year's salary, so there's a carryover effect. He has a Rookie of the Year, an MVP runner-up, two All-Star Game selections, and a home run title. Going into his first arbitration year, Judge compared favorably to Betts and Lindor at the same point in their careers in everything except in games played. The broken wrist in 2018 and the oblique strain in 2019 cost him. So it goes. Even with the injuries, consider Judge's ranks the last three seasons (min. 1,500 PA for rate stats):

• OBP: .401 (3rd)
• wRC+: 157 (3rd)
• HR: 106 (8th)
• WAR: +18.9 (4th)

Judge is eighth in home runs and fourth in WAR despite being 82nd in plate appearances since 2017. Yeah. On a rate basis, he's a top five player. The MLBTR model is very good but not perfect and it struggles most with players with great accomplishments. Tim Lincecum damn near broke the thing when he took two Cy Youngs into arbitration. The takeaway from Judge smashing his projection is not that the Yankees were generous and paid him well to avoid a potentially contentious hearing with the face of the franchise, it's that the MLBTR model had a hard time pegging Judge's first arbitration salary given his performance and injuries. The performance is incredible but he's missed 110 of 324 possible regular season games the last two years, or 34.0%, and the model has had trouble reconciling injuries with great performance. Clearly, a healthy Judge would've been a $10M player in his first arbitration year. He wasn't healthy though and his salary comes in not far under that $10M mark. That sounds right to me. Judge crushes his projection because the model was wrong ("wrong"), not because the Yankees decided to pay him more than necessary. As for the luxury tax payroll, nothing really changes. When I checked in two weeks ago, the luxury tax payroll sat at $259.2M with MLBTR's projections. With the actual arbitration salaries it climbs to ... $259.45M. An insignificant difference. Call it an even $260M. Trading J.A. Happ and his $17M salary gets the Yankees down to $243M and leaves a little breathing room under the $248M third luxury tax threshold. That is (probably) enough to cover injury call-ups throughout the season but not enough to sign a noteworthy free agent prior to Spring Training, not that there are many noteworthy free agent still available. For all intents and purposes, the arbitration signings don't change anything with regards to the luxury tax payroll outlook.

3. Judge extension. Now that he's in his money-making years, the Yankees should explore a long-term extension with Aaron Judge. The two sides can still work out a contract of any size even after agreeing to a 2020 deal -- Aaron Hicks signed his seven-year extension a few weeks after avoiding arbitration with a one-year contract last year -- and February and March are typically extension season. That's when teams get down to business locking up their best players. I can understand the Yankees wanting to enjoy Judge's cheap pre-arbitration years in the luxury tax era -- with an extension, Judge's luxury tax hit would be the average annual value of the contract, which would be much higher than the six-figure salary he made each of the last three years -- but now he's in arbitration, and now he's making real money. Still underpaid! Massively underpaid, really, but less underpaid than previously. Not many star position players have signed long-term extensions at Judge's service time level the last few seasons. Do any of these make sense as a potential contract framework?

• Freddie Freeman: 8 years, $135M (signed Feb. 2014)
• Kyle Seager: 7 years, $100M with one option year (signed Nov. 2014)
• Eugenio Suarez: 7 years, $66M with one option year (signed March 2018)

After those three, the largest position player extension since 2014 at Judge's service time level is Devin Mesoraco's four-year, $28M contract in Jan. 2015, so yeah, prior extensions don't help us much. Freeman was four years younger than Judge is now when he signed his extension and Seager was two years younger. Age matters. The Astros gave Alex Bregman a six-year extension worth $100M last March and that established the market for Judge at that time. Bregman and Judge have nearly identical service time and they both emerged as star players very early in their careers. Judge had more hardware at the time (Rookie of the Year, MVP runner-up) and thus could've sought more than Bregman. Now Bregman's contract doesn't apply. Judge is a year later into his career and the price only goes up the closer the player gets to free agency. (Judge confirmed to George King the Yankees didn't offer him a long-term extension last offseason.) We know Judge will earn $8.5M in 2020. Starting there and eyeballing year-to-year raises, does this work?

• 2020: $8.5M (first arbitration year)
• 2021: $14M (second arbitration year)
• 2022: $20M (third arbitration year)
• 2023: $30M (first free agent year)
• 2024: $30M (second free agent year)
• 2025: $30M (third free agent year)

That's six years and $132.5M covering Judge's ages 28-33 seasons. Throw in the buyout of a seventh year option and we could push the total guarantee to $135M. Same guaranteed money as Freeman but across two fewer years. Consider that an adjustment for age, six years worth of inflation, and Judge being better now than Freeman was then. Six years and $135M equals a $22.5M luxury tax hit. The Yankees could structure the extension in such a way that Judge's luxury tax hit remains $8.5M in 2020 -- I detailed this a while ago at RAB -- and results in a higher luxury tax hit from 2021-25. To do that, our proposed six-year, $135M extension would have to be the one-year, $8.5M contract plus a five-year, $126.5M extension that begins in 2021. They can't make any changes to the already agreed upon 2020 contract. In that case, Judge would carry an $8.5M luxury tax hit in 2020 and a $25.3M luxury tax hit from 2021-25. The Red Sox did that with Chris Sale. The extension he signed last year kicks in this year and did not change his 2019 luxury tax hit. The Yankees did not do this with Hicks. Hicks agreed to a one-year deal worth $6M for 2019, then the two sides ripped it up and replaced it with his seven-year, $70M extension. His luxury tax hit went from $6M to $10M with that move. The Yankees absorbed the higher tax hit in 2019 to get a (slightly) lower tax hit in the final six years of the contract. With Hicks, it was only a $4M bump in his luxury tax number in 2019. With Judge, our proposed extension equals a $14M (!) bump in 2020. Pretty big difference between Hicks' deal and our proposed Judge deal. The bean counters would probably prefer the 1+5 route rather than a straight six-year contract that slams the team with a big luxury tax payroll increase this coming year. Judge is a very unique player. At 6-foot-7 and 282 lbs. he is the largest position player in baseball history -- Frank Howard is listed at 6-foot-7 and 255 lbs. and he was great through his age 34 season (Giancarlo Stanton isn't too far behind Howard at 6-foot-6 and 245 lbs.) -- and who knows how he'll age that size? He plays an aggressive right field and isn't shy about sliding or diving into bases, and there's basically no historical precedent for a player this size. The Yankees already control Judge through his age 30 season and I could see the club going year-to-year through arbitration, then reevaluating his long-term outlook when he becomes a free agent following the 2022 season. If the Yankees are going to sign him to an extension that buys up free agent years, the sooner they do it, the better. Last year Luis Severino became the first Yankee to sign a long-term extension multiple years prior to free agency since Robinson Cano. The Yankees don't do this often. Judge is a special case though, and now that he's through his dirt cheap pre-arbitration years, it' time to approach him about a long-term deal. Waiting only makes it less likely he signs at a relative discount, and makes it more likely the Yankees wind up with a long-term luxury tax number that is unfavorable to them.

4. How can he improve? Luke Voit. Last week I started a series examining ways various core Yankees can improve in 2020. First up: James Paxton. Next up: Luke Voit. Voit has been very productive since joining the Yankees at the 2018 trade deadline, hitting .280/.384/.517 (141 wRC+) with 35 home runs in 157 games. He's given the Yankees a full season's worth of All-Star caliber production. Last year was a tale of two seasons for Voit. He was great in the first half, then he suffered a sports hernia sometime around the London Series in late June, and was hurt and ineffective the rest of the way. The numbers:

Last month Voit admitted he tried to play through the injury -- "I wasn’t the most truthful in telling them that, you know, everything was hurting down there," he said -- and he had surgery right after the season. He's expected to be ready to go for Spring Training. Aside from staying healthy, I think the single biggest way Voit can improve in 2020 is getting back to using the opposite field. Improving his defense would be cool too, but I'm mostly willing to accept that for what it is at this point. Offensively, Voit was great driving the ball to right field in 2018 and early in 2019, but that tendency faded as the season progressed, and his production slipped. That was true even before the sports hernia.

In his MLB career Voit has a .385 AVG and a .629 SLG (170 wRC+) when he pulls the ball. It's a .409 AVG and an .817 SLG (224 wRC+) when he goes back up the middle or to right field. (The wRC+ is so high because we've removed strikeouts, and the AVG is so high because we're including homers, unlike BABIP.) Voit gains almost 200 points of slugging percentage when he goes to right field and that makes sense seeing how he's played more than twice as many games at Yankee Stadium (80) than any other ballpark in his career (Busch Stadium is second with 36). Right-handed hitters are rewarded when they go the other way in Yankee Stadium. Voit knows that as well as anyone but he got away from it last season, and it's impossible to know how much of that was a result of the sports hernia, how much of it was a conscious decision, and how much of it was pitchers changing the way they attack him. Voit did see fewer fastballs last year than in 2018, which is not surprising. He crushed the ball late in 2018 and pitchers were going to force him to hit spin, and he still crushed the ball early in 2019. Voit is an incredibly disciplined hitter. He doesn't get enough credit for that. Last year he had the 19th lowest chase rate (24.7%) and the seventh highest in-zone swing rate (74.9%) in baseball, so he swings at strikes and doesn't swing at balls. He recognizes pitches and knows the zone. The plate discipline component is there. Going the other way is much easier said than done, but the best version of Voit is the non-pull happy version. The guy who can use the short porch and pepper right field is more difficult to get out, more difficult to defend, and more productive. Improved defense would be swell and it goes without saying we're all hoping for better health in 2020. Aside from that, to me the most obvious way Voit can improve this coming season is to get back to using right field like he did in 2018 and early in 2019. Once he started pulling the ball more often, his production slipped. With any luck, we'll be able to look back in a few months and blame that all on the sports hernia.

5. Tarpley designated. Almost exactly one month to the day after the two sides agreed to terms, the Yankees made the Brett Gardner re-signing official over the weekend. I assume the holidays and whatnot slowed things down. Lefty Stephen Tarpley was designated for assignment to clear a 40-man roster spot. Tarpley had his moments the last two seasons, most notably the three-strikeout save in Cleveland, but he's a lefty who's struggled against righties, and the new three-batter minimum rule ostensibly cuts into his usefulness.

• MLB career vs. RHB: .378/.474/.634 (.460 wOBA) with 21.7 K% and 13.4 BB%
• MLB career vs. LHB: .164/.270/.236 (.235 wOBA) with 41.3 K% and 12.7 BB%

Tarpley is reasonably young (27 in February), left-handed, optionable, and he might have a carrying tool in his sinker (67.2% minor league ground ball rate since 2017). I reckon he's better than the 40th man on more than a few 40-man rosters around the league, so expect the Yankees to trade Tarpley during the seven-day window rather than put him on waivers and lose him for nothing. They won't get anything great in return -- Chance Adams was traded for a fringe prospect and Nestor Cortes was traded for $28,300 in international bonus money -- but nothing great is better than nothing period. With Tarpley a goner, the bullpen depth chart behind the six core relievers (Zack Britton, Luis Cessa, Aroldis Chapman, Chad Green, Tommy Kahnle, Adam Ottavino) looks something like this (40-man roster players only):

1. RHP Jonathan Holder
2. RHP Jonathan Loaisiga
3. RHP Ben Heller
4. RHP Mike King
5. RHP Nick Nelson
6. RHP Brooks Kriske
7. RHP Deivi Garcia
8. RHP Albert Abreu

I don't think the Yankees gave Holder a $750,000 arbitration salary to not be at the front of the line going into 2020. They'll give him a chance to show he can return to his 2018 form with a healthy shoulder. Loaisiga pitched four times in nine postseason games, so there's some level of trust there, and I think the Yankees are ready to turn him loose as a reliever this season. Heller is healthy now and he also turned 28 in August, so it's time to get that show on the road and see what he can do with regular usage. Those three are the clear top three on the depth chart behind the big six (big five plus Cessa). King is a nice piece of rotation depth but the Yankees have always gone with their best and most talented arms. If they believe King can help them in relief, they'll use him rather than keep him stashed in Triple-A as a spot starter. The 5-8 spots are pretty interchangeable. Abreu and Garcia are higher end prospects who will have a strict development plan. Kriske and Nelson are more likely to shuttle up and down. Those eight pitchers above are all righties. With Tarpley gone, the best lefty relief option behind Britton and Chapman, two high-leverage guys, is, uh, Trevor Lane or James Reeves? Not great. Don't be surprised if the Yankees bring in a lefty on a minor league deal in the coming weeks. Maybe a reunion with Tyler Lyons? Even with the new three-batter minimum rule set to impact bullpen strategy, I still expect the Yankees to stash a southpaw with MLB experience in Triple-A. Just seems like one of those things teams will continue to do even with the rule change, you know?

6. Escotto rising. I've been looking for a reason to write about shortstop prospect Maikol Escotto and Ben Badler (subs. req'd) gave me one. He ranked Escotto as the 19th best prospect in the Dominican Summer League. The Yankees gave the 17-year-old a $350,000 bonus as part of their 2018 international signing class and over the summer I heard he's already made very nice strides in pro ball. Badler's report backs that up. From Badler:

There's a lot of quickness to Escotto's game, both at the plate and in the field. He has fast hands at the plate and he hit for surprising power in his first season. He has a compact swing and has a solid sense of the strike zone for his age, but he has to cut down on his strikeouts after punching out 26 percent of the time last year. An above-average runner, Escotto has a quick first step and good hands at shortstop, along with a plus arm and a fast, short throwing stroke.

The strikeouts (26.1%) are an eyesore, but Escotto also hit .315/.429/.552 (167 wRC+) with eight homers, 13 steals in 16 attempts, and a 14.7% walk rate in 218 plate appearances last year. He was a top ten offensive performer in the league. DSL stats are as unreliable as it gets, so I would not fall in love with the numbers, but the scouting report is quite good. Escotto is a right-handed hitter who is very strong for his size (5-foot-11 and 180 lbs.) -- I hear he posted strong exit velocities for his age last summer -- and has the tools to remain at short even though he mostly played second base in the DSL. The two knocks on Escotto are the strikeouts and the lack of projection. He's close to maxed out physically for his size. That said, he's 17, and a growth spurt could still be coming. Also, he's yet to make his debut in the United States, so keep that in mind. We are talking about a DSL kid here. As things stand, Escotto has already made the jump from mid-range bonus lottery ticket to legitimate prospect, or at the very least someone to keep an eye on going forward. It was a promising first full pro season for Escotto.

7. Rapid fire thoughts. CC Sabathia is back. Andrew Marchand reports the Yankees have named Sabathia a special advisor to GM Brian Cashman. "I will take as much CC as I can get," Cashman said. Sabathia has been open about wanting to remain with the Yankees in some capacity and he gets the same special advisor's role held by Reggie Jackson, Hideki Matsui, and others. Makes sense. Marchand says it's possible Sabathia will appear on YES Network broadcasts, which could be incredibly fun, but nothing has been finalized. Apparently Sabathia is not a Michael Kay fan and would not want to work with him. Heh ... know what we haven't talked about this winter? Masahiro Tanaka's elbow surgery. He had arthroscopic surgery Oct. 23rd to remove bone spurs. In the world of elbow surgeries, it's a relatively minor procedure, but it's still kind of a big deal. It always is when you dig into a pitcher's arm. The good news: Tanaka has already started throwing. He posted a video over the weekend. Tanaka had a bone spur arthroscopically removed from his elbow in Oct. 2015 and came back with his best season in 2016 (3.07 ERA and 3.51 FIP in 199.2 innings), which I guess is a good sign. Either way, expect the Yankees to take it easy on Tanaka early in Spring Training because that's what they always do with their pitchers early in camp, especially after an offseason procedure ... if you're interested, Baseball America (subs. req'd) released their first full first round mock draft yesterday. They have the Yankees taking California HS OF Pete Crow-Armstrong with the No. 28 pick. The mock draft is guesswork at this point, there's no intel connecting the Yankees to Crow-Armstrong, so make of that what you will. MLB.com's scouting report is pretty fun, if nothing else. Sounds like a less refined Blake Rutherford.

(Send your questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com.)